Dean,
The actual dropping in the motor is only 10 minutes. Getting the motor ready to drop in is about 8 hours however! There are so many things that the engine builder doesn't do. Make the coil wire, bolt on the carb, bolt on the turkey pan, bolt on the clutch, pressure plate, flywheel, pilot bearing,
oil pressure sending unit,
oil temperature sending unit, water temperature sending unit, throttle linkage, dial in the bell housing, change the input shaft on the tranny, bolt on the tranny, change the shifter, hook up the bypassing fuel regulator, etc, etc, etc. (All future topics coming up!) Then, hooking it all up takes a lot of time. (But we are working hard to MINIMIZE that time as much as possible.) There are a million things to hook up.
We never place anything on the body work for several reasons.
It is impossible to find a clean towel, cover, whatever, to cover the fenders with. If there is any dirt, shavings, crap, gremlins, whatever, hiding in the cover it will scratch the car. So, we just don't touch the body work when we are installing the motor. If you look closely at the pictures of my guys, you can see they only touch the body wherever there is a tube that connects the body to the chassis. Covers invite people to set things on them--like wrenches, parts, etc. With no cover, no one puts anything on them.
The angle you are looking at the chains on the spreader bar is deceiving. The spreader we use was specifically made to be quite a bit WIDER than the valve covers. There is NO WAY the chains can touch the valve covers during the install. Wrapping cloths just takes up time finding them and putting the on. It is MUCH better to simply make the spreader bar such that it is impossible to scratch the valve covers in the first place.
Funny, I always thought changing out the input shaft was not too difficult--until I posted all of the steps required!
David
